AUGUST 2012 WEEK ONE. KINDA. SORTA. HEY, WHAT'S THAT CALENDAR LOOKIN' THING ON THE RIGHT?

Well, it's a calendar is the answer. The one I've been trying to bring you, the adoring public, for a couple of years now, and for this I have Michael Davis, webmaster extraordinaire, to thank. I can now take what previously existed as a collection of notebook scribblings or iPhone calendar entries and make it a united resource that hopefully benefits all socially misfitted film lovers like myself. So hooray would be the appropriate response, fellow geeks! Let me hear ya!

I also want to thank Adam Honen and Ingrid Montealegre for their effort and enthusiasm, as well as all my friends and fellow film lunatics who kept on me about this site. I think we're finally here. Well, finally here in a form at least presentable for the moment. We have more to come, trust me.

But enough about me and my pals. Let's talk about you. What do you think of me and my pals?

Okay. To biz.

Starting now this site will work in a few different ways. Primary amongst these will be the clickable calendar on the right. Click on any day and you'll see what if any classic films are screening that day. Each entry is clickable and will lead you to the homepage of the venue hosting that screening, as well as the option to buy tix in advance. If further intrigued you may scroll within the window for the entire month's listings.

If the individual listings overwhelm or lack context, retreat to the left side of the page to my blog, which will hopefully provide context and a pat on the back. It's okay. You deserve it.

The combination of these two resources, as well as the occasional feature article or update, will I hope provide my fellow obsessed with what I've been dreaming about these last couple of years; the one stop page for classic film screenings in our fair metropolis and just beyond. I await your feedback and hope to be worthy of your word-of-mouth.

Now to August, and the month in film. Two major retrospectives dominate the month. The Film Forum's celebration of Universal Studios 100th anniversary sputters and stops this week, so I implore you to attend while you still may. The standouts this week include Monte Hellman's cult masterpiece TWO LANE BLACKTOP, Robert Siodmak's exotic and bizarre COBRA WOMAN, and the dug up silent era gem LONESOME,which has invited comparison to Murnau's SUNRISE.

The BIG fest this month is BAM's massive Hollywood Comedy retrospective. Focusing on the funny peeps of the sound era and the directors who best brought out their vivacious and sometimes voracious id, this is as close to a complete overview of the American comedy film I've ever seen. Pretty much every scheduled screening is an essential viewing, and a few rank among the greatest movies ever made. So I'll just start with Howard Hawks, like I always do. Chief among the screenings I argue until someone smacks me down is the double bill on the 18th of BRINGING UP BABY and HIS GIRL FRIDAY, the latter of which features Rosalind Russell, who essays my favorite perf by an actress all-time. There is no cooler broad in film history than her Hildy Johnson. Try me.

Both flicks well represent the sub-genre Hawks helped create; the screwball comedy. Even Katharine Hepburn becomes tolerable, even enjoyable, by dialing UP the annoying in BRINGING UP BABY, and Cary Grant was a sport to invite metaphysical emasculation for the sake of a few yuks. Plus there's a leopard on the loose. Essential. Trust.

Ernst Lubitsch is well repped by two pre-code pushings of the boundaries. DESIGN FOR LIVING is a toned down version of Noel Coward's controversial stage comedy, and still ruffled Ladies League feathers back in 1933. TROUBLE IN PARADISE is a class comedy revolving around pickpockets and con artists. Like they do. It's a perfect representation of The Lubitsch Touch. Wanna know where Billy Wilder came from? Watch these two flicks.

Speaking of Wilder two of his classics unspool as well, and why wouldn't they? SOME LIKE IT HOT and THE APARTMENT were back to back masterpieces and the latter bagged him the Oscar. HOT remains perhaps Marilyn Monroe's best remembered, though perhaps not most iconic, role. APARTMENT remains Shirley MacLaine's defining manic-pixie-dream-girl perf.

Preston Sturges continues to give Cameron Crowe fits to this day because he wrote, produced and directed gems like SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS and THE PALM BEACH STORY, both on display at BAM this month. Both star Joel McCrea, one of the criminally lesser discussed stars of the studio system. PALM BEACH is a defining example of Sturges' combination of wit and tomfoolery, but TRAVELS remains his masterpiece. A comedy that dared to seek out the despair that resides alongside the optimism in the American soul, it earns every one of its laughs and all of its heart. Plus Veronica Lake's a honey. Trust me.

George Cukor is all over BAM's calendar, having cranked out the defining Tracey and Hepburn films (PAT & MIKE, ADAM'S RIB), Judy Holliday's Oscar winning coming-out party (BORN YESTERDAY), and defining works of the screwball variety (THE PHILADELPHIA STORY). The guy just knew his guffaws.

The rest of the fest, which extends into September, is up on the calendar I'm glad to say. So browse, and jump over to BAM's website as well to plan your viewing sked.

Museum Of The Moving Image, or, as I call it, home, continues to show off its great new screening space by spinnin' the widescreen hits in its See It Big series. This month features Visconti's THE LEOPARD, Gilliam's BRAZIL, and Lean's DOCTOR ZHIVAGO. The standout though remains what may be the crowning achievement from perhaps the most dauntingly impressive career in film all-time, John Ford's THE SEARCHERS. Screening in a new DCP format, if you've never seen this on the big screen leave this website now and don't come back until you do.

MOMA continues its essential Auteurist History Of Film series this month with Renoir's THE GOLDEN COACH and Kazan's ON THE WATERFRONT, showcasing two of the screen's most important stars. Neo-realist fave Anna Magnani and American method-boy Brando were crucial to the course film acting would take in the postwar era, and COACH and WATERFRONT were respectively pretty much built around them.

MOMA also continues its mini-fest Unaccompanied Minors: Views Of Youth On Film. Great prints of LORD OF THE FLIES and BICYCLE THIEVES unspool at the hallowed venue, but the standout has to be Charles Laughton's lone at-bat NIGHT OF THE HUNTER. He and DP Stanley Cortez concocted a viewing experience like no other, as stylish as anything Murnau ever attempted, and one of the most strikingly, hauntingly beautiful B&W films ever made. Plus Robert Mitchum's preacher'll scare the piss outta ya. Love and hate indeed.

Anthology Film Archives brings the Eisenstein and Dreyer happy this month, and really what better way to spend the waning days of summer I ask? All the essential works are here in excellent prints. Both men contributed defining and game-changing works to the medium, and you can catch THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC and BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN with the guy who brings his mattress to the movies. Like you'd have it any other way?

Outdoor flicks are enjoying their last couple of weeks, so drag yer lazy ass to Bryant Park for ALL ABOUT EVE or RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, or to Tompkins Square Park for POLTERGEIST. Or all three. Get off the couch, punk!

David Lynch gets some hugs from both the IFC Center and MOMI this month, as ERASERHEAD and BLUE VELVET merrily unspool this month. Both remain the purest example of Lynch's particular love/loathe relationship with all things Americana. Well VELVET does anyhoo. ERASERHEAD's just...well you tell me.

Finally two faves of the cinegeek get a communal screening at 92YTribeca later this month. John Carpenter's STARMAN reminds us all why we loved this guy so much growing up and how far his talents have fallen since. Forget the present, ensconce yerself in the darkened environs of 92YT's screening space and experience Karen Allen's haunting final gaze one more time. It never gets old.

Then there's the recently championed, and long overdue for it, FLASH GORDON, perhaps the trippiest film ever unleashed on the STAR WARS generation. Nah, it's without a doubt the trippiest. There's no comparison. Seth MacFarlane's TED is pretty much a love letter to this flick, and finally brought our dirty little secret out in the open; we love this movie. We fucking LOVE this movie. It's nuts, it's preposterous, it's ripe for ridicule. But it's fun. More than fun. It's a fucking blast. It looks incredible, the actors took the camp seriously, and Freddie Mercury cheers on the title hero. It doesn't get dumber, but your grin will never get wider. And any guy who says he never wanted the Ornella Muti bore worms scene as a DVD extra is a fucking liar. Go ahead, I dare ya.

So here we merrily trod forth, my fellow cinegeek. I hope this site is useful and enjoyable and I await your feedback. In the meantime, go to the movies, because, as with all art, the great films do love us as much as we love them. Excelsior, knuckleheads!

-Guiseppe Du Cinematek

aka Joseph Walsh